Major aircraft deals a boon for GE Aviation plant

Saturday

Sep 7, 2013 at 1:00 PM

GE is investing in N.C. aircraft plant expansions.

By Gareth McGrathGareth.McGrath@StarNewsOnline.com

GE Aviation is wrapping up the summer in style.The company recently signed two substantial aircraft engine contracts – and that means good news for the more than 600 employees who work at the local GE Aviation plant in Castle Hayne, which makes rotating parts for a slew of aircraft engines.Those orders come on top of a significant future investment in the New Hanover County plant that the company announced at the start of the summer as part of a statewide expansion of its North Carolina facilities.Just before the Labor Day weekend, Canada's WestJet Airlines ordered 65 next-generation Boeing 737 jets, which generally seat from 160 to 180 passengers. The exclusive supplier of engines to the popular twin-engined 737 is CFM International, which is a joint venture between France's Snecma and GE Aviation.WestJet's order for LEAP engines is valued at $1.7 billion. The planes will be delivered starting in 2017.Parts for the LEAP engine are made in Castle Hayne.Then last week Delta announced that it had selected CFM engines to power 30 Airbus 321 jets, which will seat 190.The agreement is valued at more than $850 million, including spare engines and a suite of material support agreements. That engine, the CFM56, also uses parts from the Castle Hayne plant.Delta's planes will start to be delivered in 2016.GE Aviation spokesman Rick Kennedy said that while it was hard to quantify the impact of a single order on employment levels, the recent contracts help to ensure the long-term stability at the local plant. He added that GE and its partner companies, including CFM, are forecasting to deliver about 3,600 commercial and military jet engines this year and 3,800 in 2014."The outlook for the Wilmington plant, based on our production outlook over the next three years, is very good," Kennedy said in an email.GE also has announced plans to expand and upgrade its aviation facilities in North Carolina, including at Castle Hayne.The company announced in June that it would add 242 jobs – possibly 35 of them at its Castle Hayne facility – and invest $195 million over five years as part of a $20 million incentive package offered by the state and local governments.In Castle Hayne, the company will invest $63 million in its 540,000-square-foot facility.Along with parts for commercial aircraft engines that power airliners built by Boeing, Airbus, Montreal-based Bombardier and Brazil-based Embraer, the Castle Hayne plant also makes parts for a GE engine used to power the F-16 Fighting Falcon, a multi-role fighter popular with the U.S. and many foreign air forces.